A navigational treatise in the form of a poem, with numerous illustrations and maps, written in Pesaro on 7 August 1484.

Ms. codex.

In Italian.

Bibliographic record created by BPL staff based on description by Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis.

Secundo folio: Vego la stella

Collation: Paper codex (eagle watermark), fol. i (early paper) + 24 + i (early paper) ; pi1, 1²⁴ (quire of 24 leaves (12 nested bifolia)); contemporary arabic pencil foliation.

Layout: One or two columns, approx. 35 lines. Bounding and writing lines ruled in blind or light plummet.

Script: Written in a humanistic cursive, hand of Gaspare, son of Antonio, in brown ink.

Decoration: Maps, schematic diagrams and illustrations throughout fol. 1-15, including several T-maps, astronomical diagrams and a world map across fol. 12v-13. Spaces unfilled after fol. 15.

Binding: ca. 19th-century [?] vellum over pasteboard panelled in double-ruled gilt; spine gilt-stamped "Date/La/Sphere" and "MS./ dated/ 1481").

Origin: Written in Pesaro (Italy). Colophon: Scriptum Pisauri die vii Augusti 1484 per me Gasparem M. d. Antonii fidelis depiso de fidelibus die supradicta et hora vigesima tertia pulsate.

Immediate source of acquisition: Purchased from William H. Schab in 1953 (catalog 15, no. 42).

Call number: MS f Med. 125.

Former call number: MS 1547.

Bibliography: Jeffrey Hamburger, et al., eds. Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections. (Chestnut Hill: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2016): no. 218; Margaret Munsterberg, "A Medieval Pilot-Book," BPL Quarterly VI (1954): 114-117; Zoltán Haraszti, "Notable Purchases," BPL Quarterly VII (1955): 77.

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